Localisation conference in Limerick to focus on social trends

Next week, University of Limerick’s Localisation Research Centre (LRC) will be honing in on industry-changing trends, such as social localisation, at its annual conference, with Dr Thomas Arend of Twitter set to talk about how the social network can be used for translations.

The LRC’s 17th annual software localisation conference will run at the Carlton Castletroy Park Hotel from 20-21 September. One of the key themes of this year’s event, according to its organisers, will be the area of social localisation, and how Ireland can maintain its position as a global leader in this multi-billion euro industry.

LRC director Reinhard Schäler spoke about the 2008 conference when Kate Losse and Ghassan Haddad of Facebook explained how their company had involved more than 30,000 users around the world in the project of helping to translate the site into 16 languages.

“At the time this was an immense and groundbreaking achievement. Next week, four years on, Dr Thomas Arend of Twitter will be in Limerick to talk about how Twitter could energise over 500,000 volunteer translators to translate millions of words,” said Schäler.

Industry leaders from the likes of Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Symantec are set to make presentations at the two-day event, as well as researchers from the Centre for Next Generation Localisation (CNGL).

Content publishers and localisation service providers will also be talking about how they work with communities on translation and localisation projects.

“Here in Ireland, we consider ourselves privileged to have been involved in running the first large-scale translation projects using Translation Memories; with colleagues developing the world’s leading localisation exchange standard, XLIFF,” said Schäler, pointing to how companies based in Ireland set up the world’s first 24/7 localisation factories.

However, the said the industry in Ireland cannot afford to rest on its laurels.

“The world is changing around us and most importantly the way we communicate is changing. Our industry must adapt to these changes if we are to remain leaders in this field,” said Schäler.Translation image via Shutterstock